Jan 25, 2010

Agencies Unload New Sets of Data onto Data.gov

Marking the first in a series of deadlines outlined in the Open Government Directive
(OGD), Friday saw the eleventh-hour (well, 6:50 PM to be precise)
release of over 100 data sets from executive branch agencies on data.gov.

Among the data sets are lists of Federal Advisory Committee rosters
going back to 1997, Freedom Of Information Act requests made
to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and summaries of Department
of Energy R&D projects. The list of data sets is available here.

The OGD required agencies to release three new high value data sets on the
22nd, and in the anticipation leading up to Friday, one question
loomed: what exactly is a "high value" data set anyways? Fortunately
data.gov allows visitors to rate each set. Readers, what do you think?
Do these sets of data have high value?

We're still sifting through the data, but are hoping that the spirit
behind the movement towards transparency — that a government that is
open, accountable, and communicative will ultimately be more effective
— doesn't get lost amid the zeal for technology. The White House and
its agencies deserve credit for taking this step in the right
direction, but let's not forget that it will take more than Twitter
accounts and dashboards to establish a culture of openness.

The OGD also required agencies to designate by the 22nd one senior
official to be accountable for the quality of federal spending data,
but no sign of a master list of those officials so far. The next
deadline in the OGD is February 6. Read the Open Government Directive here.

Comments

Not impressed with the OSD FOIA log, that's long been publicly accessible online. It's nice it's linked to from this central collection point for the US govt now, but this example, at least, isn't living up to the hype of being a "new high value data set."